V For Victory
Another year of college basketball has just ended and now that the men’s and women’s championship seasons have been etched into the record books, we can look back and see just where both of these sports stand in their historical context. Two styles of basketball (men’s basketball and women’s basketball are truly like two different sports these days) that are about as different as the difference between the two sexes. Two results about as different as night is to day, as different as Venus is to Mars, as different as magnificent is to mundane.
On Monday night, the Villanova men’s basketball team won their second men’s NCAA title (remember that first one, the Villanova stunner in 1985 over the college basketball super-power at the time, the Patrick Ewing led Georgetown Hoyas )over the University of North Carolina 77 to 74 on a last second shot. The game was ultra competitive.
On Tuesday night, the UCONN women’s basketball team stomped all over the Syracuse women’s team 82 to 51, capping off an unbeaten 38 and 0 season. Needless to say, the game was not even as close as the 31 point margin of victory would indicate. The outcome of the game was NEVER in doubt.
Therein lies the difference between men’s and women’s college basketball. When the men tee it up and play their way through a March Madness bracket, there is a pretty good chance that there will be some drama, some competition and a tournament where nobody really knows what’s going to happen and who is going to win. Not so with the women. The entire world knows exactly what is going to happen and who is going to win. The UCONN women will win and they will win so convincingly, it’s not even necessary to watch. They are simply too good for the rest of women’s basketball.
The UCONN women were so good, they not only finished the year unbeaten, they never once had a team come within ten points of them. Their AVERAGE margin of victory was something like 39 points per game. This year’s championship team wasn’t just the first time they won. This is their fourth straight championship. The senior members of this UCONN team have won the championship every time they have played. The UCONN record over the last three years is 116 and 1. How they lost that one game is as newsworthy as this championship team.
Their coach Geno Auriemma has now won ELEVEN championships for UCONN since 1995, Ten since 2000. That’s 10 championships out of the last 17, which means in women’s basketball, someone could take the UCONN team against the entire field of teams in the women’s March Madness bracket every time over the last 17 years, and over half the time, the UCONN bet against the entire field would win you money. If ever there was an argument that the amzaing run of UCLA basketball under coach John Wooden could never be duplicated in today’s day and age, people would be wrong, because it is happening right NOW in the women’s game.
The coach knows how to coach. He knows how to win. The legendary status Auriemma has attained now gets all of the top players in the country to want to play for him. He gets to pick and choose the best best women’s players in the country to play for UCONN basketball. There is little to no doubt that you can expect UCONN to win the championship each and every time they play over the next several years (for as long as Auriemma is the coach). One gets the feeling you could take ALL of the rest of the women’s best players in the country, put them on one “all star team,” and they STILL would not be able to beat UCONN. The UCONN women are simply too good for their sport to be any good anymore. It’s not their fault they are this good, but it’s a fact that their excellence at becoming a winning machine has taken all of the excitement out of women’s basketball.
But unlike the women’s game, the men’s game is in great shape. The men just produced one of the greatest chapmpionship games in their history. Two of the top five or so teams in the country survived the March Madness tournament to reach the finals. During this year’s regular season, Villanova and North Carolina both spent some time as the number one team in the country.
The finish of their final game was as exciting as any championship game in NCAA history. It was a closely matched, competitive game between two teams that could, on any given night, probably be able to either beat or lose to the other team just about the same. Both teams, being former number one teams, were good enough to be champions. Both teams played well enough to win. But one of them was going to have to lose this game.
North Carolina was the better team early. Even though the lead changed hands several times in the first half, North Carolina was able to forge ahead at halftime by a score of 39 to 34.
In the second half, Villanova was the better team and “kind of” took control of the game (similar to the way they did it against Kansas in their regional final game). Even though Villanova took a ten point lead on Carolina with about 5 1/2 minutes to play, one had the feeling that these two teams were too evenly matched for them not to be really close at the end of the game.
North Carolina surged back. Within the next two minutes, they had cut the Villanova lead to three. The two teams pretty much battled their way down the stretch, with Villanova always having just enough game to keep the lead, while North Carolina always had enough grit to always keep it close. Both teams were in this game competitively. Both teams were battling to win themselves a championship. It came down to a couple of plays in the final seconds.
With North Carolina making a basket to cut a three point lead to one with 22 seconds to play, Villanova had the one point lead and wanted to run out the clock. North Carolina had to either steal the ball or foul Villanova, with the hope that they might miss one of the two free throws. They fouled Villanova, and Josh Hart hit the two clutch free throws to send Villanova up again by three points.
With 13.5 seconds left, North Carolina would likely only have time enough for one good shot attempt. Everyone on Villanova knew that they HAD to prevent North Carolina from getting off that three point attempt that could tie it up. UNC dribbled it around desperately, but Villanova was on top of every three point shooter, as seconds ticked away.
Finally, Carolina’s Marcus Paige was able to attempt an off-balance, double clutching, (almost more of a panic-induced fling than a shot) something close to 27 foot PRAYER of a left-handed, desperation shot. Miraculously, the prayer was answered and the shot went in, tying up the game 74 to 74. It had to rank as possibly the greatest degree of difficulty of a desperation shot (considering the magnitude of the game and situation) in NCAA history. Greater maybe than the Christian Laettner shot, the Michael Jordan shot, the Tyus Edney, the Keith Smart… all of them.
Villanova called time out with 4.7 seconds remaining. Given that there were 4.7 seconds left and not one or two, there WAS time enough to hurry the ball up the court and get off SOME kind of a shot attempt. That is something college teams practice a lot, just for this type of situation.
So Villanova got the ball inbounds to their point guard, who briskly dribbled up the court as if he were going to take that last shot. With just about a second or so to go, he dished the ball off to his teammate Kris Jenkins, who was trailing behind him and on the right. The sudden last second pass caught Carolina off guard. Jenkins caught the ball stopped and popped a clean, barely contested 25 footer that exited his hands clearly with about .05 (half a second) remaining on the clock. The ball was in the air as the horn to end the game sounded. It went in. Cleanly. In basketball terms, it went in as sweetly as a salmon swimming upstream.
Villanova had won this most exciting game 77 to 74 after two of the most amazing clutch shots ever seen at a college game. The fans of the winning team celebrated a game whose greatness will be talked about for, pretty much, forever. The Carolina fans were as crushed as could humanly be possible. It was one of sports’ greatest (if not THE greatest) “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” moments in history.
And so you had the difference between the men’s game vs. the women’s game of year 2016. Both the winning performances will be talked about in the history books. UCONN, for its dynastic 10th championship of this century, not to mention its fourth in a row and its year of complete dominance. And Villanova vs. North Carolina, for being in a game that produced some of those fabulous memories that actually transcend most everything that ever happens in a lifetime.
In the men’s game, the massive underdog teams like Villanova vs. Georgetown in 1985 have a chance to pull off the massive upset. You have to watch the games to see if that game might produce that amazing upset. The “Georgetown” superpower of today’s women’s game, UCONN, simply crushes out the hopes and dreams of its opponent in ways that make you uncomfortable. You KNOW who is going to win and that it won’t even be close. You actually feel sorry for the team getting slaughtered.
I’ll take the excitement and the competition of the men’s game over the sledgehammering predictability of the dominant dynasty known as UCONN women’s basketball, thank you. One is kind of like “must see TV,” while the other is just something that you can read about in your next day news summary.
